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The first week of the Cuban missile crisis played out in secret. President John F. Kennedy and his advisers quietly evaluated the results of the U-2 overflights and formulated a response. But on Tuesday, October 23 the crisis began playing out in public. U.S. diplomats scrambled to secure international support for the impending quarantine of Cuba while the White House waited to see what Moscow’s next steps would be.

The Organization of American States (OAS) met at 9:00 a.m. in emergency session at its headquarters in Washington, DC at the request of the United States. Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Edwin Martin introduced a resolution authorizing OAS members to use force, individually or collectively, to impose a quarantine on Cuba. The initial discussion proceeded slowly, however, because many of the ambassadors were awaiting instructions from their home capitals on how to vote. When the vote was finally held in late afternoon, every country but Uruguay voted yes. (Cuba had been expelled from the OAS earlier in the year, and the Uruguayan ambassador abstained because he still had not received instructions from Montevideo; the next day he would revise Uruguay’s vote to yes.) The United States now had what it claimed was a firm legal basis for imposing the quarantine.

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The Water’s Edge examines the political forces shaping American foreign policy, the sustainability of American power, and the ability of the United States to navigate a rapidly changing world.